Local Artists Supported to Secure Funding for Live Alice Mparntwe Arts Program.

Dale Wakefield, has announced Round 2 recipients of the Live Alice Mparntwe Arts program. The program supports arts and creative events or activities to enliven the Alice Springs CBD. Collectively the nine recipients have been allocated $140,836 in funding.

Red Hot Arts has supported three of the nine projects through auspicing their grant submissions and continue to offer support to Dave Nixon’s Story Wall project from Round 1 of the grants.

Pat Ansell Dodds, one of three well known artists, will be sharing her art and culture with free, interactive demonstrations with visitors to Alice Springs. Ms Ansell-Dodds said “Mpartwe, Undoolya and Elempe is Arrente country, but when visitors come here to Alice Springs the galleries and art those visitors see is mostly from other cultures in Central Australia. The Central Arrente culture, artists and stories need to be seen by visitors and known across the world.” The demonstrations will include the artists painting traditional stories, talks on the stories using the paintings. Sessions will also have interactive components for guests to understand the techniques used in traditional painting. Separately there will be walking tours by the artists telling stories of the locations in and around the CBD.

Markus Kuchenbuch will be working with a String Assemble, creating a magical ambience in the Todd Mall on Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, with beautiful classical music performances with mostly chamber music from Bach, Mozart, Schubert to Piazzolla, Carl Vine, Elena Kats-Chernin and Sculthorpe.

Local Knowledge is a print map and walking tour of Alice Springs showcasing community stories connected to sites around the CBD. The map will present the Alice Springs as an engaging cultural landscape through text and graphics depicting individual and group stories and sites. “The map invites visitors to experience the town through local eyes,” said community artist, Kelly Lee Hickey. “It will give residents the opportunity to discover new stories about familiar places. While maps of the CBD do exist, there is no resource like this presenting local stories connected to site in an easily accessible format. “The map will be both a public artwork, and form the basis of a walking tour which are popular throughout the world. The map will be launched with a walking tour of the sites led by Ms Hickey.

King Marong African Drum and Dance project is an inclusive community-based initiative, designed to allow people of all ages and from all walks of life to come together without prejudice and participate in an environment of rhythmically based discovery. Blending demonstration with expectation, up to 40 drumming participants at a time (no cap on dance/singing participants) are taken on a musical journey with no experience required.

Dave Nixon, who was a recipient in Round 1 of the Arts program, will continue with his project to reactive “Story Wall” a free public cinema on the lawns of Adelaide House in the Todd Mall that screens films licensed from local producers and the National Film & Sound Archive that referenced central Australia. In addition, StoryWall will produce its own films – digital stories – that broadened representation of the town’s cultural diversity and enriched its mythology by exploring ‘who we are, what we think and feel’. Mr Nixon hopes that “future developments of the project will engage local community groups and provide pop up shops for digital interaction such as high res scanning, interviewing space and workshops on how to make content with your own devices”.

Red Hot Arts provides an innovative auspicing service including advice and support on budget, applications, super and WorkCover. Red Hot Arts also provides applicants with letters of support.

For further information visit www.livealice.nt.gov.au or subscribe to our “What’s Hot”. And be sure to tag #liveALICE if you’re posting your event pics on social media.